


and a star to steer her by

by properhaunt



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 13:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/properhaunt/pseuds/properhaunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brienne learns of the Red Wedding. Jaime comforts her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and a star to steer her by

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for 3x09. You have been warned.

 

_I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and sky,_

_And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by._

 

_– Jason Masefield_

 

A brisk dawn was breaking. Sunbeams set molten stains across the Kingsroad, dappling the thick bracken their horses trod upon. _Stark-Lannister, Stark-Lannister_ , said the muffled beat of hooves. To Brienne of Tarth, who blinked against the brightness, that rhythm was the thinnest of cords. Down and down it tugged her, into a gray labyrinth where she was unravelling; bones, sinew, and all.

 

 A raven had come in the night.  

 

 

 _* * *_  

 

 

Swathed in a meager piece of sheepskin, Brienne lay awake, guessing the hour by the stars. Despite knowing little of astronomy, her favorite of Evenfall's many rooms had always been the Maester's observatory. Hours of her girlhood were spent gazing up at his celestial models; orbs in bronze and silver dangled from the ceiling by red ribbon, and the warm drafts that snaked under the shutters always sent them clinking delicately. Even after the agonizing growth spurts that had left her mired in bed, her fingertips could just barely brush their polished underbellies. Now, somewhere on the road to King's Landing, constellations of the Mother and Warrior glimmered like the ornaments of that domed tower room, hanging right out of reach. The bear pit's moldering walls and stinking drove no longer crowded about her. With the sky view, Brienne's breath finally came freely. 

 

Ser Jaime, sprawled on the damp earth beside her, had slipped into an effortless slumber. And it _was_ Ser Jaime now – not Kingslayer, not Lannister. The gentle rasp of his snore filled her ears, its constant tide reassuring. _He was well off. He needn't have returned, but he did. . ._  The thought had struck Brienne many times since the broken wrist of Harrenhal was swallowed up by evening mists. But it wasn't until there, in the darkness, that it pitched a tent in her mind. She did not quite know what to make of it.

 

Brienne's attention slid away from the stars towards Jaime's hapless form. It was diminished by sleep, the stump of his arm tucked gingerly across his chest. For the briefest moment, she entertained herself by imagining the planes of his face without the swath of beard, and clean skin, scars smoothed away. A blush bloomed on her cheeks – a nightrose on an ugly hedge – and she looked quickly upwards again. 

 

Several yards off, a rustling and a cawing sounded from within a dark splash of beeches, breaking the knight from her reverie. The cry of a raven was unmistakable. Brienne felt her muscles stiffen into alertness. _Dark wings, dark tidings_ , her septa used to solemnly recite. 

 

A lantern was lit, flinging ghostly light across the camp. Two low voices began to cycle around its fogged glass. It was Steelshanks Walton, leader of their escort, grunting some command or other. Then came the dry crackle of parchment being smoothed out. Shutting her eyelids tight and tilting her head, she strained to catch the words.

 

“ . . . Mostly by sellswords. All thirty-five hundred of them, it reads.”

 

“Seven gods! They really did it . . . And the Stark boy?” Brienne's heart started to hammer a little faster, as though she were hurrying up a long staircase.

 

“Slain. By Lord Bolton himself. The mother as well.” Her eyes shot open at the words. Now she was slipping, slipping down the steps.

 

“An ill deed, to slay such a woman,” the soldier continued on at unawares. “But I suppose Catelyn Stark would never bend the knee. Not in the blood of her last remaining son. Is that all that's written, Ser Walton?”

 

“Aye. We are to continue to King's Landing, where the company will be welcomed by Lord Tywin. More graciously now, I expect.” The lantern dimmed, its tiny flame eaten up by shadow. All was still.

 

 _Lady Catelyn, dead. Robb Stark, dead._ With the force of wildfire exploding into the clearing, shock blew through her. It ripped open an untapped vein of possibility: that Catelyn Stark, not her, should die before her oaths could be fulfilled. It was a sheer reversal of natural order. Her hands curled compulsively into fists.  Brienne could no longer feel the rapid expansion and contraction of her chest, but air was steaming into great clouds above her. She knew she must be gasping.

 

Half-formed images danced jaggedly in the dun. A mother's fierce warmth in Lady Catelyn's eyes as Brienne knelt among decaying leaves and made pledge. Her unexpectedly strong hands, dragging Brienne away from Renly's billowing pavilion. Eyes that would never behold Sansa or Arya again. Hands that would never weave another wreath of the Seven for Bran, for Robb, for Winterfell. The knowledge came with numb, icy clarity. It took every fiber of concentration to stay inert. _Hush and hold steady, girl, hush and hold steady,_ Ser Goodwin whispered in her ear. There were watchmen posted nearby, and the final bit of strength she felt inside – ringing like cold steel –  would not allow her to reveal pain to enemies, to traitors. 

 

_I don't serve the Starks. I serve Lady Catelyn._

 

With another ghastly croak, the raven launched itself from its branch, wings melding with horizon. Jaime stirred at the sound. A name, or some inaudible word, escaped his lips. He rolled onto his side, then blinked hazily, taking in Brienne's indistinct form and the distant silhouettes of Walton's men. He studied her face.

 

 “What? What is it, wench?”

 

Brienne shook her head, throat stoppered. How did she – how had she lost both a lady and a king? How had she not fulfilled a single vow?

 

Awkwardly, Jaime propped himself on the elbow of his bad arm. Pain fluttered across his countenance. He regarded her for a moment, his greenish stare paring her down, a dagger peeling away the husk of her knighthood. She could only shake her head again, beginning to feel salt burning relentless tracks over her nose and under her neck. _Gods, Gods, look away. Look away from me._ A heavy log of applewood shifted in the dying fire, sending up a shower of sparks. She trained her eyes upon it, following the tiny pinpricks of light through her tears as they swelled and extinguished in the cold air. 

 

Summoning the courage to glance back, she saw Jaime Lannister uncharacteristically hesitant. Slowly, he raised his remaining hand. When he clumsily pressed his left fingers along her face, stroking away its wetness, she was astonished. Never before had they touched without a pragmatic reason – and now there was no knife in her hand, no fainting spell, no beast to escape. She remembered watching him cry in the bath, and it softened her. They were skimming trails beneath her eyes now – his five fingers – and she felt what it meant to be touched, to be comforted, and let herself sink into the shallows. She turned her body towards his. They stretched out side by side in their thin furs, a mere hand's length between them.

 

Minutes passed. Something skeined between their bodies, quiet and rippling, the color of water. His hand's roving motions laid her bare, seemed to know her; no part went hidden as it caught her tears, traced her temples, wandered up through the blond, disorderly stalks of her hair from neck to crown. Yet more slowly, he placed his lips there, where skin became hair, once, twice, so faintly it almost did not happen. They were not the passionate kisses a man gives to his lady, but kisses like the sturdy knots Tarth's sailors used to moor their boats in the sapphire tide. Kisses that became invisible ropes which sighed as he pulled away and they grew taut. Was she still awake. . .?

 

“Sleep,” Jaime murmured. His palm slipped over her forehead and stayed there, a heavy weight.

 

Tomorrow, she thought dimly, her eyes would feel coated in an inch of sawdust. Dreams soon pulled their wet, woolen hood over her head. Three Northern serving girls twisted raggedly from a bare tree. Their black, bloated features transformed into noblewomen with long dark hair. Turning and turning in the wind, nooses creaking. She had no sword to cut them down.

 

_* * *_

 

Anger barbed in her chest. Even hours later, in the burnished morning light, Brienne was unaccustomed to its sting. All the minstrels on Tarth had sung of how vengeance was for the villains; chivalrous knights acted out of love, their deeds welling up from an abiding sense of duty. _Do not strike out in enmity,_ Ser Goodwin said. Innocence had melted childhood indignities down into an armor plating, shielding her from such petty emotions. So shame, sadness, yes, and blighted hope – she had felt those in turn. A rose cast at her feet. Renly's shirtfront darkening, gorget fountaining blood. Vargo Hoat sneering over the railing, features alight with the foul spark of hunger. Even last night, she had been in the grip of horror. But today. Today she boiled and seethed, sickening from a poison with no antidote. 

 

_They took her body and dumped it naked into the river._

 

Laughter erupted at the head of the party. It was the laughter of men nearing the hall of their king, to whores' skirts and hot meals and feather beds. Her fingers itched for the hilt of a sword. Instead, they tightened uselessly around the worn leather of her bridle. _Stark-Lannister, Stark-Lannister._ On they rode.

 

Around noon, they stumbled across a broken tower. Seated on a cup of lush grass, it provided an excuse to dismount. Pines wavered along the roadside, and Jaime was pulled into their shade by Maester Qyburn. The horses nosed distastefully at the pine cones. Qyburn was twisting his hand around in a jar of honeycomb, crushing the waxy stuff between his palms, naturally ruddy complexion grown even more flushed with the journey. _To prevent infection,_ he had declared, before unceremoniously ripping off his patient's bandages.

 

Ser Jaime held still enough, but he was covertly trying to catch her eye. He'd been doing so all morning, ever since Walton toed them awake, anxious to spill the raven's news to a solicitous ear. Brienne had bolted up and strode into the woods before she had to hear it again. Well, now he knew. He could make of it what he willed.

 

The tower was in more dire need of repair than Harrenhal. Roots shot up from the stonework and what little wood was left on the doors had rotted. Wending her way up along its weathered archways, Brienne tried to quell the tide of rage still battering at her innards. Her large foot kicked a rock that had fallen loose from the arcading. The sharp pain was not enough of a distraction. At last, she paused at what might have once been a cut or a battlement, watching Walton's men crawl this way and that far below. How many soldiers had been slain from this very spot, trying to take the tower that now lay decaying in the sun? 

 

“Please tell me if you're about to jump. Walton's squire is resting just below, I'll have to warn him to get out of the way.” 

 

Brienne jolted back. Ser Jaime was standing casually behind her, readjusting his sleeve. He smelled of honey.

 

“I'm not _suicidal_ ,” she grit out, wondering how he always managed to find her when she least wanted to be found. Striding over to the edge of the wall, Jaime peered down, golden hair writhing in the breeze. “Can I not –” Her voice cracked in an ugly fashion and she reeled away, embarrassed by her womanish display of emotion. _Knights never cry_ , Ser Goodwin cautioned. “Can I protect no one?”

 

“You protected me. And better than most, I imagine.” 

 

“I lost you a _hand_.”

 

“Vargo Hoat lost me a hand.”

 

“Renly–” She began brokenly.

 

“-was a pampered little lordling. He wasn't prepared for war and it would've killed him sooner or later.” He watched, expressionless, as the corners of her mouth twitched in outrage. “You love him still?”

 

Brienne did not have an answer to that question. She brought her knuckles to her teeth, trying to stifle what came next, but it tumbled out of her anyway. “He came to the island, when I was seventeen. It was his coming of age tour. My lord father held a ball in his honor. I-I wore a yellow and rose brocade; it fit poorly, I grew too fast for the seamstress to alter it. I was taller and bigger than he, and no one had spoken to me all evening, but Renly asked for a dance. I expected him to mock me, for it all to be a jape, but he was kind to me. He respected me when nobody else bothered. . .” She trailed off, becoming keenly aware that Jaime had fixed his full attention upon her and was not doing her the courtesy of looking off to the crest of grass below. “As did Lady Catelyn, after him. And look where it got them both.” Her jaw began to latch and unlatch, attempting to ease the dull ache in her head.

 

“Nobody lives long playing the game of thrones.” A strange expression stole across Jaime's face, and he chuckled darkly. “Something my dear, sweet sister is fond of saying. You win or you die trying. That's no fault of your own, Brienne. It's not as if you drove your sword through their backs.”

 

Their eyes met inexorably. If it had made a sound, it would've sung out like blade interlocking with blade. She caught a primitive flash, an echo, of her own guilt there, before it was chained down inside his pupils. The allusion to the Mad King hung as thick and close as bathhouse air. 

 

“Lady Stark met her end bravely,” he continued, blinking rapidly. “I'm sure of it. She was a woman of nettle. Rather fearsome with a rock, too.” With no idea what he was referring to, Brienne remained speechless. Her head drooped downwards to where a few scarlet poppies were wedging their way between the flagstone yard. A sheen of sweat had collected beneath her rough-spun menswear on the climb, and now the wind was licking shivers along her spine. 

 

“I take no pleasure in her death.” 

 

Her head snapped up. “But your family crushed the rebellion! You must be pleased. Don't tell me you aren't.”

 

Jaime was combing restless fingers through his hair. A few hours ago, they had done the same to hers, like water weaving through hollow river reeds. She fought to keep her cheeks from reddening. 

 

“A Lannister victory was inevitable,” came the familiar jot of arrogance. “But . . . I wronged Catelyn's son, Bran.” His voice swooped to a low hum. “I'm sure you heard all about how I pushed him from that window at Winterfell. I had my reasons, and given the chance, I'd be like to do it again. However, I had hoped that whatever the outcome of this pointless war. . . I could somehow repay the debt by returning her daughters. You made me want that.” He sighed and leaned over the outcropping with a careless grace, his one hand curving against it. _How unfair,_ she thought unbidden, _that some of us are so beautiful, while others . . ._

 

“Me, Ser Jaime?” Her words came out feebly, almost comically so, for such a hulking woman. Brienne was rewarded with a sardonic smile, but she realized its gleaming edge held nothing in it that could hurt her. That cloying clover scent still clung to him.

 

 “You reminded me that some oaths have their worth.” 

 

The two knights lapsed into silence, and the silence tightened like a bow. Brienne recalled another tower, back in Evenfall, where stars and planets collided with a gentle tinkling. Maybe when – or if – she returned to the Sapphire Isle at the end of all this, she would be able to look upon their swaying orbits and remember two bodies clambering up from a bear pit, alive and full of fire, not two bodies growing cold.

 

“M'lord? Er, m'lady?” They leapt apart to find Walton's weedy, freckled squire squirming uncomfortably behind them. The boy appeared as though he would rather be saddling a dozen horses than speaking to the Kingslayer and the freak that accompanied him. “M'lord wants us to depart soon.”

 

“Tell me something, wench.” Jaime started abruptly down the stairs, as if their conversation had never happened. He called over his shoulder. “When we arrive at my charming home, would you care to spar?”

 

And down the tower they went.


End file.
